Thursday, November 15, 2012

Dark Wave - creating a new painting, progress photos

And the last of the new paintings...

Dark Wave

This painting is the ultimate representation of the series I've been working on - combining and contrasting light and dark.

It's also the painting that I'm really excited about! It was challenging and so finding the end point was really exciting and rewarding. Some paintings seem to happen more easily, like New Year Night which just went along per the plan. Other paintings fail. And yet others get there in the end but the way is a bit more of a struggle and the plan doesn't seem to be going right. The lesson with these paintings is always always to get back on plan - usually the struggle happens because I veered off slightly along the way.

That's the case with this painting - the sketch had the dark strip low on the canvas and I mistakenly brought the dark colour up far higher than I should have.

Beginning layers - bright colour underneath as usual, then building up some light.

The light layers continue, the colour and tone right but the dark area bothering me a lot.

The idea is right but I finally realise that the dark strip needs to come down further on the left side. Paint over some dark then reappy masking tape to create the strong line of the wave. White, white and more white layers...

Photos of the final paintings will be shown first in my November newsletter! So don't forget to sign up for a peek at them before everyone else.